Hey GC, Just spent some quality time chilling at a lake and an idea spontaneously came to mind that I'd like to share. Well first, tangential thought of how delightful it is to begin really expressing your mind on a daily basis. I know GC is filled with some extraordinarily brilliant minds and I personally find it a shame to think of all those that do not speak them loud and clearly. It seems that at all times we should be speaking our minds without hesitation, enveloping a greater feeling of how it is to honestly be. Okay, may this post actually begin. Loss, and the idea of loss. It seems inevitable that at sometime in our life we experience the feeling of loss. The loss of an opportunity, the loss of a dear friend or family member, the loss of a job. But where is this sense of loss to be attribute to? What really is lost? I've come to the decisive experience that there really is no-thing to lose. Take for an example the idea of a car. We may in time develop a keen sense of emotional attachment to our cars, in time depending on it as if it will never leave us. Then one day it breaks down or it gets stolen. Then we see the loss of one thing that we used to have but it is now gone. We may mourn about it, get emotionally frustrated, or find desperate attempts to recover it to its original state. But what was really ever there that was 'ours'? No matter how much we use things, no matter how many possession we have, we can never truly have anything. This is because everything, the nature of phenomena is ineffable. There is nothing that can be had, and thereof nothing that can be taken away. Nothing is ours, but nothing is not ours. The only reason we get upset when something gets taken away from us, maybe a relationship, is because we were first instilled with the wrong idea that the relationship was something that we could have and keep. The only thing you can truly keep is not-keeping. Life moves on too fast, there is too much exchange of energy, everything is too unstable to ever be able to grasp anything and consider it ours. So, why get attached in the first place? The point is to live in harmony with reality, understand the nature of it and thereof transcend the many senseless trips we experience in our lives. There is no one thing in the universe that is, in its nature, not devoid of any innate substance. Everything lacks a self-nature, a sense of concreteness to it. We may think that the bowl that we eat from is concrete, for its form has not changed shape since its introduction to our awareness. However, this whole time, trillions of atoms and particles that compose the bowl have exchanged themselves endlessly with the rest of the universe. That what we see as a bowl is anything solid and concrete per say, but more of something that is interacting with the rest of the universe in a very deep and profound way. There is, therefore, nothing that makes the bowl a bowl but its appearance. And appearances are just as elusive in nature as anything else. Thereof, no-thing should be taken as real. Rather, everything should be taken as an in between flux of being real and also not quite real. Real as in, well it's there, but also unreal as it, but not really exactly 'there'. Knowing this, it can be said that there is no loss for what is there to be lost and who is it that is at loss? Peace and love GC, love love love you all! Happy travels my brothers and take care!
I understand the idea but i think a strive for possession (self gratification) is necessary to drive our species. I'm saying this about the general public who don't dwell on these things nor care.
No loss, No gain The truth is everyone is everything, the universe and everything came into existence together, that is why everyone is everything, everything is one It's hard to explain what I am trying to communicate, but there is no separateness from us and everything else, everything was born as one how can you lose that which you already are? We are everything, We are nothing.
According to the buddhists in order for there to be attachment, you need two things -- the attacher, and the thing to which the attacher is attached. In other words, "attachment" requires self-reference, and it requires seeing the object of attachment as separate from oneself. The Buddha taught that seeing oneself and everything else this way is a delusion. Further, it is a delusion that is the deepest cause of our unhappiness. It is because we mistakenly see ourselves as separate from everything else that we "attach." Like you said the earth moves too fast to really grasp and hold onto anything, there is no control, and controlling is just applying friction to your own life, slowing you down. Enjoy the waves as they come, knowing the entire ride is full of ups and downs
I understand what you're saying. My question to you is what is life other than the gain and loss (or exchange therefore) of energy? Energies can be recognized and, although they can not be physically possessed, their recognition institutes a feeling a familiarity. It might not be the actual loss of the energy, but the loss of feeling that energy constitutes that creates such a phenomenon. As someone has stated, we might have all originated from the same source but it is distance which brings about the feeling of loss. The Law of Conservation of Energy states the energy cannot be created nor destroyed, this is common knowledge; such energy just merely changes forms. I will target your loss of a loved one as an example. It is not the thought of possession that creates the feeling of loss, but the familiarity with such person. They are, in essence, an energy and as stated above, familiarity can be created with such energy. When it changes forms and thus distance is created, the true thing lost is that feeling. You spoke mostly about losing physical things, but what about psychological possessions? What is your take on the loss of feelings, memories, knowledge, etc?
I agree with you, I really enjoy the point you are making. It really is the distance that brings the sense of hurt. From a relative standpoint, all anything is is the flux of energy. From an ultimate standpoint however, there is no-thing that is the flux of energy as no-thing can ultimately be identified, conceptualized, or labeled as being. What is changing, what is fluctuating if you, in total, have always been beyond the conception of change itself? If you truly lie in a state that is neither really changing nor not-changing, neither really being nor not-being, nor neither nor both. In point, who is that whom experiences energy as change, whose perspective is it that it is all changing? Isn't your perspective just as equally freed from being held down by labels as anything else? It is more or less like a river, it's waves and constant flow represent a constant interplay of energy. We may take the waves as being ultimately real, actually there as having a substance. However, when you become the river, what is actually changing? The river is all there is so what change can be induced? The idea of emptiness (i.e, everything lacking a self identifiable nature) is not only applied to physical things, but also to psychological phenomena. The phenomena of mind, as you mentioned as feelings, memories, knowledge, etc, are just as non-concrete and lacking any ultimate truth or nature to them just as the bowl itself. Thereof, mind and reality alike are equal in their 'supreme evenness', not being but not not being, no-thing really distinguishing the two apart.